Delawares from kathyinmo

[caychris]

My flock got spooked the other day as I was removing the "evil black tub of doom" that holds cold water that is so nice on a hot day. They went bonkers and the male I have caged up outside went absolutely nuts at their distress. Every time I have to catch some of the juevenals they scream like im killing them and it sets him off too. I love his protective nature but when I tried to integrate him with the laying girls they started to beat him up. Im going to try again because I need his space for my broody buff orp.

 

[finnfur]

Here is a funny one for you guys. My Spidey sense got pinged yesterday so I stepped out to the coop wearing my back porch flip flops and flimsy pjs ... one of PapaDel's chicks was on the wrong side of the breeding coop fence and all the birds on both sides were telling me all about some recent upset (I suspect they'd been visited by one of our resident hawks). So I bent over to scoop up the chick (cue the typical chick chasing slapstick) and broody co-parents on the other side of the fence sounded the "don't touch my chick!" alarm and ran to the fence. Immediately, five Delaware hens free ranging on my side of the fence screeched over and attacked my legs and feet. "Owie! Owie! Good girls! Owie!"

Because I'm nice I carried the chick through the attack so I could place him gently in the coop with his moms, dad and mates instead of just heaving him over the fence. I bet you can imagine what greeted me when I opened the door to the coop. I got it from both directions for the split second before I tossed the chick in and slammed the door. Peace was restored.

Picking up chicks happens often enough around here. I've been warned off by the broodies. But I've never had other hens get involved, and certainly never hens from another flock.

I think the protective streak is a good thing in my flock, as long as they still let humans work out there.

$100 for a Utube vid of that

Reminds me last week Sharon was helping me move Chicken tractor with Broody B13 and "lonesome" chick. They are in the tractor and it is inside the yard with Bert and the free rangers. Well the Broody was raising all the alarm cackles she could muster and Bert snuck up on Sharon and made the attack.
Just her because they know me and she is considered a unknown threat I guess.
She put him in his place and all was well. But it was funny.
They change when the parental instincts kick in.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

$100 for a Utube vid of that

Reminds me last week Sharon was helping me move Chicken tractor with Broody B13 and "lonesome" chick. They are in the tractor and it is inside the yard with Bert and the free rangers. Well the Broody was raising all the alarm cackles she could muster and Bert snuck up on Sharon and made the attack.
Just her because they know me and she is considered a unknown threat I guess.
She put him in his place and all was well. But it was funny.
They change when the parental instincts kick in.

I was super happy neither of the free-range cocks got involved. PapaDel thought about it for a second, but he was on the wrong side of the fence and was kinda busy looking after the chicks while the hens went nuts. He is very good with the chicks. Doesn't quite brood them, but he does feed them and talk to them a lot. Right now he is especially protective of Penguin's two remaining chicks.

Cute story about PapaDel from a few weeks ago. Gust and I were in the field adjacent to the Broody Run. I was playing frisbee with Gust, and PapaDel was gossiping with me through the fence. We all heard unhappy chick peeping from over in the coop. We all stopped what we were doing, cocked our heads, and looked at each other. Then PapaDel took off running for the coop, Gust followed, I took up the rear. It was just a chick trying to get up into a nesting box for the first time while everyone else was already in there.

The look PapaDel gave me before he decided he needed to go check it out was priceless.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Week 14 Mr. Fatty cockerel weights.

3 lbs 8 oz
3 lbs 6.5 oz
3 lbs 6 oz
3 lbs 4 oz

If you give me the secret handshake I'll tell you how much the Black Copper Marans cockerel we sneaked into that clutch weighs.

 

[finnfur]

That it ? - Not sure I'm a member. But I am of SDWD

and weights look good

 

[caychris]

Well I got some Delaware eggs from Neal today to give to my buff orp broody. Moved her to a broody cage and it took her a bit to settle in but she found her spot and pulled an egg under. I placed the rest around her and she stuffed them in.

Good girl. She is the sweetest broody ever lets you pet her and lift her to look at the eggs. Of course she loves being a lap chicken otherwise.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

That it ? - Not sure I'm a member. But I am of SDWD

and weights look good

Close enough!

The gorgeous Black Copper Marans cockerel that hatched a day before my first Delaware clutch, and was sneaked into that clutch hours after hatching ... he weighed 4 lbs 15 oz the day I weighed all the Mr. Fatty cockerels.

He feathered faster, and is flirting with sexual maturity now ... as evidenced by one of our free-ranging hatchery cocks, Shade, giving him attention through the fence the past couple of days.

Found this interesting research recently-ish done in Canada, raising three historically significant breeds of chicken (1957, 1978, 2005) all the same way and comparing growth rates, efficiency, and anatomical features. The study does NOT look at Delawares, but rather "The current experiment included 2 University of Alberta Meat Control strains unselected since 1957 and 1978 (AMC-1957 and AMC-1978, respectively) and a 2005 commercial Ross 308 broiler (Aviagen North America Inc., Huntsville, AL). The AMC-1957 and AMC-1978 strains have been maintained unselected at the University of Alberta Poultry Research Centre, Edmonton, Alberta, since 1989. Source parent flocks were all 46 wk of age. The AMC-1957 strain was developed from 3 commercially available meat-type chickens and an experimental strain in 1957 at the Experimental Farm in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, for research purposes by Ed Merritt, Robb Gowe, and Allan Grunder (Merritt and Gowe, 1962). This strain was the progenitor of the AthensCanadian Randombred (ACRB) control strain maintained at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia (Hess, 1962). More than 100 peer-reviewed papers have been published using the Athens-Canadian strain as a representative of meat chickens of the 1950s. Nine broiler breeder companies contributed sire and dam strain chicks to develop 2 AMC-1978 lines (strain 20 = sire, strain 30 = dam; Chambers et al., 1984). The present study used the dam line."



http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/26/ps.2014-04291.abstract

And the full text HTML version ...

http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/26/ps.2014-04291.full.pdf+html

and the full page PDF version ...

http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/09/26/ps.2014-04291.full.pdf

Take a look at the photos on pages 4 & 5 ... !

I'm don't think my Delawares feather as fast as the 1957 birds used in this study. But their body shape is more like the 1978 birds. Not sure about their actual size/weights, as I didn't weigh them so young.

ANYWAY ... I'm always interested in better understanding the modern "meat bird" potential of the Delaware compared to other options. People rightly point out that the Delaware was the industry standard in the early 1950s, and a fair percentage of people working with Delawares now are breeding for meat. So I am always struggling to put that in perspective.

Especially since the Kathy's Line Delawares don't seem to grow super fast.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Dare I start reading up on genetics? It blows my mind in many ways ... all those codes. And you can't exactly interview the bird to have them tell you what their genetic makeup is. But I really want to better understand both the Silver Columbian color pattern (with barring!) and the yellow leg thing.

http://www.extension.org/pages/6536...backyard-flocks:-an-introduction#.VaPcaMZViko

But even reading this super simplified article makes me all

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

We strung fishing line above part of the breeding coop run ... now a grow-out coop & run for about 1/3 of our chicks ... to dissuade the hawks. It doesn't photograph well, fingers crossed it works. And there is still a big part of the run left to do.

Meanwhile, I heard a commotion in the free-range flock and saw dark flapping wings in a wooded area. I ran out there, down to the fence line, and found one of my good Delaware hens on the wrong side of the fence surrounded by a mess of her own feathers. I think a hawk had picked her up but couldn't manage to carry her very far. Not dead, no blood. Just scared quiet like they get.

Hawks are NASTY this year.

 

[finnfur]

My flock got spooked the other day as I was removing the "evil black tub of doom" that holds cold water that is so nice on a hot day. They went bonkers and the male I have caged up outside went absolutely nuts at their distress. Every time I have to catch some of the juevenals they scream like im killing them and it sets him off too. I love his protective nature but when I tried to integrate him with the laying girls they started to beat him up. Im going to try again because I need his space for my broody buff orp.

Chris
Yes if it moves it spooks em - I have blue cattle tubs [ farmers use for molasses vitamin licks for cows]
They sit right under the trailer coop tongue 24/7 but when I pick it up to shovel the poop into all hell breaks loose.

Good luck on your new clutch of hatching eggs